The Sword And The Lovers

Chapter 5

Chere kept staring at the princes of Kojo, Kote as she was with her guards and talking with a female servant. As she stood there and laughed while her friend talked to her Chere kept on staring at her face. The guards leading Chere out of the palace and to the site to work saw how Chere was staring at the princess and they began to hit him. Chere thought the hitting would stop at a moment but it did not. The guards kept on hitting him until he fell to the ground and covered his head with his hands. Thy were hitting him hard with their sticks and clubs. The princes whose attention was on her friend was drawn to Chere and the guards and she wondered what was the crime of Chere that had made the guards to loose their cool on him. She began to walk towards the beating spot and when she got there she stood and kept looking at Chere. The guards who had stopped beating him dragged him up and began to push him forward and towards the site. The princess stood and watched them. One of the guards was about to leave when the princess's friend asked him, "What was his offence?"

"We caught him with our eyes as he looked sternly at the princess. He will be given a hard labour for it" said the guard before he left them. The princess sighed and did not say a word. She and her friend went back to the palace.

When the princess entered the throne room she was told that her father was now inside his resting room and she decided to pay him a visit. He met him standing beside the window and looking outside the palace building. He was so focused on what he was staring at that he did not notice the coming in of the princess. Kote stood and watched him. At a point she wanted to find out what it was that her father was so engrossed on. She went closer to the window without the father noticing her and looked outside thereby seeing that his father was actually watching as the guards removed the body of the Seer of Bara and used his head to play. When the father took notice of his daughter he was shocked and asked, "How did you come in here?"

"The door was open father and I just had to come in. I can see you are watching the..." she was about to finish her sentence when the father raised his hand to stop her. "Not now daughter mine" he said and left her standing there.

"But when father? You and I know that what you accused the Seer of was not true and he never insulted you. Father the priests at the palace temple have their own rules and no matter who you are you do not go there to enforce your orders or impose laws on them. You have come to realise that religion and authority are two different things but they are all pillars of a man's life. The Seer of Bara was in his shrine when you visited him and when you got there you..."

"I said enough!!!" The king shouted at his daughter and Kote kept mute abruptly but in her eyes were questions that demanded answers. The king then went to sit on his seat and sighed. The daughter opened the curtains of the window and watched the rest of the display as the guards had already put the corpse of the Seer of Bara inside the shallow grave and were now taking the head to the same grave. The princess turned to look at her father and the father sighed again. She did not say any more words but left him there. The king then stood up and went outside too.

At the site where Chere was being forced to work he was getting tired of the work because coupled with the beating he was given on their way to the site he was already sick and weak before they reached the site. He sat at the site and was resting when all of a sudden he was hit from the behind and he fell heavily on the ground. While on the ground the one who has hit him then stepped forward and stood before him, using his fit to drag his head. Chere opened his eyes and looked up and then saw that the man who had hit him was now raising a axe to strick him with it when he heard a loud voice that drew the attention of the man and he lowered down the axe and turned to look at the princess as she approached. Chere could hear the princess asking the man what he was trying to do and the man was saying Chere had the guts to rest when it was not time to rest. The princess told him to loose the chains in the legs of Chere and the man even though he hesitated did as he was instructed and the legs of Chere were loosed from the chains that bound his feet. Chere then stood up with the help of the men with the princess and he was led out of the camp.

Inside the tent of the princess, Kote told the men helping Chere to lower him down on the bed and the men hesitated because Chere was looking so dirty from the mud at the site. But the princess insisted and they lowered him down on the bed. The princess then told them to go and fetch the healer in the palace and before long the healer was brought before the princess. The princess then spoke, "I want you to attend to him and to make him well. I must warn you, my father must not know that he is here and you must remain here with him. Whatever it is you need I will provide to you through my men and my female servants. They will make sure that you do not lack anything" The princess left after having been assured by the healer that nothing like that would happen and that he was going to be faithful to her. But immediately the princess left the healer looked closely at Chere and recognised him to be the son of the great Seer of Bara. He walked out of the tent hastily and before long he was before the king of Kojo in his throne room. The king was not surprised to see him for the recent war they had with a neighbouring kingdom proved that some of the men in the palace still needed treatment. They needed treatment and the healer must have come to get more money to get more healing balms. The king waited for him to demand for money but his expression proved there was something more. The king then asked him to speak and he began to speak.

"My king and my lord, king of Kojo kingdom I have come before you because I remain your faithful servant. I am you servant and will always be your servant. I must also tell you that your daughter is conspiring behind your back"

When the king heard this he immediately dismissed everyone in the throne room and then looked closely at the face of the healer and said, "Repeat what you have said and bring more meaning to it"

The healer then continued, "My king and my lord. The Seer of Bara's son is still alive, that we all know and he was meant to be at the site where the slaves and the workers are working but then he is not at the site and If I must tell you where the son of the Seer of Bara..."

"Out with it now!!!" shouted the king and the healer revealed that the son of the Seer of Bara was inside one of the tents of the princess of Kojo kingdom. When he had revealed this the king stood up and paced. He immediately sent for a soldier and asked him to send it five more men and they did.

The princess was going back to her tent to see how Chere was fairing but when she got in she was so shocked to see her father seated on the very bed that Chere was meant to be lying on. She was so shocked that the cup of water in her hand slipped and fell.

The king then stood up and faced her. "You ingrate and a betrayal. What were you trying to do? To make the boy my son and your brother already? You have made me to understand that I have not raised you up with a strong arm. I raised you up with a hand of a child and not with the hand of man no wonder you spoke at me the way you did when you came into my room. You have no fear in you already to the extent that you brought in a slave..."

"He is not a slave father" immediately she cut him in the father slapped her across the face and she held her face and reared in pain. The father then walked round her as he spoke.

"Were you going to save him and then make him run?" asked the father.

"Where is he father?" asked the princess.

"He has been taken away, to a place where the vultures will eat his remains after my men must have killed him. You are not a son but a daughter yet you behave like ten sons combined. You give me more trouble than Onochie the king maker. I wonder why you are not on my side. You are not supposed to be against your own father. All I want is to raise a land that will become your footstool. Why on earth would you go as far as freeing a young man that could come for my head later in life or do you not know that I killed his father and if he were to be killed he would not have to torment my life. I sent him to the site so that he could live out his remaining days at the site but you now want to thwart my plans. Now go to your room and while you are there make sure that you do not go behind my back planning for my downfall"